Chris Stevens loved the Middle East, and he loved the Libyans who rose up to overthrow the brutal dictator Moammar Gadhafi last year. Stevens was special envoy during the Libyan revolution, arriving during the revolt by cargo ship and working from a couple of tables in the eastern city of Benghazi — a fragile diplomatic foothold in a dangerous place.
He made an upbeat video as he returned in May to be U.S. ambassador. “I was thrilled to watch the Libyan people stand up and demand their rights,” he said. “Now I’m excited to return to Libya to continue the great work we’ve started.”
Tragically, J. Christopher Stevens is now a martyr for freedom. He died Tuesday with three other Americans in an assault on the American consulate in Benghazi.
The details of how he died — and at whose hands — are unclear. There is evidence the attack was planned — not simply a violent escalation of a protest over an amateurish movie that Muslims found insulting. Protesters in Cairo also upset by a trailer for the film posted on YouTube stormed the U.S. Embassy there and tore down an American flag, but there were no injuries.
Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president, was quick to criticize President Barack Obama, noting Tuesday night that he was “outraged by the attacks” and that it was disgraceful that “the administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”
The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus of Wisconsin, tweeted: “Obama sympathizes with attackers in Egypt. Sad and pathetic.”
Sad and pathetic? Yes, it was sad and pathetic to see such callous and uninformed statements from politicians who couldn’t wait until they had the facts to use an international incident for political gain. The former Massachusetts governor doubled-down during a news conference on Wednesday even as leading Republicans refused to play politics over the deaths of four Americans.
The statement Romney referred to was released by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo before the attacks. It criticized the film and noted the American tradition of respect for all religious beliefs. The diplomats released the statement in the hope of calming protesters and avoiding violence. They were not sympathizing with the protesters; they were exercising prudence in the midst of a tense situation and restating basic American values. And both Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton quickly condemned the attack.
Romney’s pettiness likely would be disturbing to a seasoned diplomat such as Stevens. He made his mark by knowing both the “streets, not just the elites,” said a friend of his, Robin Wright. She worked in the Middle East as a journalist and is now a scholar at the United States Institute of Peace.
A native of California, Stevens, 52, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and UC’s Hastings College of Law. He worked as an international trade lawyer for a time, then taught English as a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1991, serving in Jerusalem, Damascus and Cairo. He was fluent in French and Arabic.
He was known for his commitment to the people he was serving.
In a post on her blog in August, Hannah Draper, who is on leave from the embassy, said Stevens was “legendary” in Libya because he rode out the revolution with the Libyan people.
“Several Libyans have told me how much it means to them that he stayed here throughout the revolution, losing friends and suffering privations alongside ordinary Libyans,” Draper wrote.
In a somber statement delivered Wednesday morning in the ornate halls of the State Department, Clinton condemned the attack but wisely tamped down the idea of a pullback from Libya or elsewhere in the Middle East. She vowed that the cause of U.S. engagement in Libya would “not be another casualty” of the attack.
In mourning the loss of the four Americans, she noted that it was she who sent Stevens to Libya.
“He risked his life to stop a tyrant, then gave his life trying to help build a better Libya. The world needs more Chris Stevenses.”
The work of freedom is often hard and sometimes ugly. Stevens surely knew that after all his years of service. His death should strengthen American resolve to be a force for good in the region so that the cause lit so brightly during the Arab spring is not extinguished by forces that desire only darkness.